Monument Lab is a public art and urban research project taking place at City Hall in Philadelphia in the spring of 2015. Monument Lab will feature artist installations, public events, and submissions from Philadelphians in response to the question: What is an appropriate monument for the current city of Philadelphia?

Monument Lab draws inspiration from William Penn’s plan for the five public squares in Philadelphia, which led us to use the idea of a blank square as the basis of the design for the Monument Lab identity. The blank square speaks to not only the five public squares, but also to the idea of a clean slate, a blank canvas on which to create a monument to Philadelphia. We left the square hand-drawn in order to emphasize the speculative, process-oriented nature of the Monument Lab project.